Instagram Will Make Changes to Benefit Mental Health
According to Instagram's CEO, chronologically ordered timelines will return in the coming months.
You probably remember when, in 2016, Instagram released one of its most controversial updates: feed posts were no longer to be shown in chronological order. This supposedly allowed for the "most relevant" posts to be prioritized for users. However, after five years, the platform has admitted that the strategy didn't work out as well as planned, or worked out a little too well.
This week, Instagram's CEO, Adam Mosseri, said that the company is considering returning to chronological order, thus limiting the scope of their algorithms and, hopefully, positively influencing the mental health of young people.
“We've been focused for a few years on how to give people more control over their experiences. One idea that we've tried publicly is called favorites, where you can pick a subset of people you want to have appear at the top of the feed,” Mosseri said during his US Congressional testimony. “We believe in more transparency and accountability and we believe in more control. That's why we're currently working on a version of a timeline feed that we hope to release next year."
